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Advances in health care for people with intellectual disabilities (ID) that have resulted in increased longevity also force health care providers, researchers, and policymakers to question the adequacy of chronic disease management for the growing number of middle aged and elderly persons in this population. We report on sociodemographic and clinical factors associated with obesity, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes mellitus in an ethnically/racially diverse sample of people with ID in New York City. Administrative and chart review data were collected from a community-based specialty medical practice for people with intellectual disabilities. Adult subjects were included if they had an intellectual disability, lived in the community either independently or with relatives, received all of their planned, outpatient health care services though this practice, and had a primary care visit within the study period. One hundred twenty-six (43.0%) persons were obese, 58 (19.9%) had hypertension, 77 (26.5%) had hypercholesterolemia, and 13 (4.5%) had diabetes mellitus. Age, gender, and BMI (for the latter three conditions) were the most consistent risk factors. Intellectual functioning and behavioral problems were not associated with greater odds of these conditions. This study provides crucial information for improving community-based primary care for people with intellectual disabilities. Specifically, these findings highlight the importance of constructing innovative strategies to mitigate chronic disease risk factors in this population that involve community-based case management service providers who can help adults with ID and their families adopt needed lifestyle and behavior changes.

Three-hundred-forty-one executives responsible for hiring decisions in Fortune 500 industrial and service corporations returned a mail questionnaire measuring their attitudes toward persons with severe disabilities. Attitudes were favorable to the employability of persons with severe disabilities both in terms of its advantages for the individual with a disability and the lack of disadvantages for others in the work setting. Attitudes were more favorable in industrial than service corporations in the area of lack of disadvantages for others in the work setting. These attitudes co-existed with general attitudes toward persons with disabilities that approximated those held by other population groups and are also similar in industrial and service corporations. Significant subgroup differences in attitudes existed. Executives with prior contact with persons with disabilities had more favorable attitudes in both industrial and service corporations. This was a trend in service corporations and a highly significant difference among the industrial corporations. Thus, the ability of contact variables to predict attitudes was more pronounced in the industrial than in the service corporations.

It has been shown recently that molecular gas samples excited with coherent light can display a variety of transient phenomena, similar to those found in nuclear magnetic resonance. This article elucidates how these coherence effects can be used to isolate or unfold molecular collision mechanisms that normally remain hidden within the optical line shape. Elastic collisions, for example, are easily detected here in two-pulse photon echo experiments for a "CH,F vibration-rotation transition. The echodecay function which provides a signature for the velocity-changing collision diffusion mechanism, is not just a simple exponential in time but exhibits an exp( -Kt') contribution for short times and an exp( -I t) decay for long times. This behavior, which is unknown heretofore, contrasts with spin echoes in molecular liquids where Brownian motion leads only to the cubic decay law. An exp( -K t') behavior can be understood in terms of a solution of the Fokker-Planck equation which describes the effect of Brownian motion on echo decay. Such a treatment is valid for small phase excursions; in the case of a gas, this implies the Doppler phase factor k hu~& 1, where k is the propagation vector of light, hu is a characteristic velocity jump for a binary collision, and r is the echo-pulse delay time.When kb. u v && 1 as in the long-time regime, the Fokker-Planck solution fails. We, therefore, present a new solution to the Boltzmann transport equation using a weak collision model and find agreement with the entire echo time dependence observed. The echo measurements indicate very small changes in longitudinal velocity per "CH,F-"CH,F collision, i.e. , Au = 85 cm/sec" thereby justifying the weakcollision model. The total elastic collision cross section is 430 A'. It follows that elastic collisions lead to velocity thermalization in a time of -5 sec when the "CH,F pressure is 1 mTorr. A comparison is also made of the "CH,F dephasing time v, in a coherent Raman beat decay, which is independent of velocity-changing collisions, with the longitudinal decay time T,. Here, T, represents the molecule-optical interaction time, due largely to jumps in molecular rotation (J) and orientation (M) state, and is obtained from a delayed nutation measurement. The fact that the pressure dependent part of v, = T, shows that T, is also independent of velocity diffusion, Futhermore, when a hole is burned in the Doppler distribution, population recovery must be due to inelastic rather than elastic collisions. Optical Carr-Purcell echoes, multiple pulse echoes, provide a direct measure of the "CH,F transverse dephasing time T, without the effect of elastic collisions while being sensitive to "phase interrupting collisions. " Again, we find that T, = T, so that phase interruptions are negligible. Had such a process dominated the two-pulse echo, an exp(t/T, ) damping would have been noticed with no exp( -K t') contribution. Thus, the present study covers several new aspects of molecular collisions.It represents the first detailed examination of velocit...

Corporate culture reflects an organization's value system and impacts the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. Individuals with disabilities are positively impacted by a corporate culture that espouses and establishes a diverse workforce as a priority. This article provides an overview of corporate culture and the employment of individuals with disabilities, and presents a case example of the corporate culture of a large not-for-profit disability service organization. With an in-depth understanding of corporate culture and disability issues, social workers can be particularly helpful to applicants and employees with disabilities as well as employers.

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